Death of a sibling

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April 21, 2013

Running Through Concrete

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Grief, Healing, Health, Nature | Tags: Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Depression, Grief, Grieving, Health, healthy-living, mental-health, nature, outdoors, Running, Stages of Grief, Walking |
[17] Comments

I forced myself into my running shoes yesterday for the first time since the day before my brother died. It was a beautiful spring day in Austin. I knew I should get outside. What I really wanted to do was sit inside with a gallon of ice cream and gain three more pounds. Okay, I don’t really want to gain three more pounds, but I’m not opposed to it enough to stop eating ice cream.

On a normal day, a day when three members of my family hadn’t died in quick succession, I wouldn’t have had much trouble motivating myself to get outside for a walk/run on a beautiful spring day. Or even a hot summer day. But for the past 26 days, normalcy has been far out of reach.

A friend asked if I’d be up for salsa dancing last night. Salsa dancing? The suggestion was so absurd, I laughed out loud. But I realized then that while I wasn’t up for dancing, I might be able to manage a walk.

I put on my running clothes, strapped on my Garmin, and made sure I’d selected a music playlist that wouldn’t have me crumble into a heap on the asphalt. As I went out my front door, I saw my stupid neighbor (the one who doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink) pulling in. He keeps texting me about hugs. I don’t want one from him. Piss off. I stepped around the corner of my building and waited until the coast was clear.

I started walking down the sidewalk on the side of a busy street. Absolutely stunning day. Deep blue Texas sky, cool breeze, tree branches swaying, birds flying overhead. The beauty surrounding me was painful. I passed children playing. Dogs barking at their fun. My heart exploded with grief. I walked on, tears falling behind my sunglasses. After five minutes, I started to run. The air felt heavy like liquid cement. I kept going, running and crying, feeling like I was drowning in the cool spring air.

Everything in the world was too beautiful. In stark contrast with the pain buried deep in my heart. I couldn’t bear it. The images on tv this past week were easier to sit with. I felt an affinity with the grieving faces. I felt the communal heartbreak. I felt at one with humanity.

But the beauty of the day made me ache. After burying my grief for nearly a month under ice cream, wine, and television, the brilliant sunshine pierced my armor. The warmth of the sun highlighted the cold dark place inside me. The pain began to seep through the cracks and I was forced to look at it in the light of day.

I made it four miles. With every step, the ache in my chest lessened in the smallest of increments. My heartbreak didn’t ease, but I could breathe. I’m going out again today. But not with the goal of getting back to where I was a year ago. Everything is different now. My aim is to learn who I am.

April 6, 2013

My gift to my brother

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Alcoholism, Alzheimer's, Cancer, Death of a sibling, Eulogy, Leukemia | Tags: Acute myelogenous leukemia, Acute myeloid leukemia, alcohol related diseases, Alcoholism, Alzheimer's, AML, Canada, cancer, Death, Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Eulogy, Grief, Grieving, Health, Intervention, leukemia, leukemia aml, Oral cancer, Sobriety, Stages of Grief |
[30] Comments

Today was my brother’s memorial service. He died 11 days ago on March 25 of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). He was 52. My brother had struggled with alcoholism for many years. He tried going sober once and it lasted a year. He white-knuckled it: no AA, no counseling, no support. After that didn’t last, he gave up. His family gave up. We resigned ourselves to his fate. Until my oldest brother died last April of alcohol-related diseases: cirrhosis and hepatitis. And then six months later, in October, my father died of Alzheimer’s complications.

I’d decided then I’d had enough, I wasn’t going to lose Steve too, and I organized an intervention. While it was an “ambush,” it was a compassionate, loving intervention. And it worked. On December 28, 2012, he entered rehab and emerged fiercely committed to his sobriety. He did what he needed to do to stay sober: meetings every day, close contact with his sponsor, reading the big book, beginning to work the steps. And then he started getting sick. Sores in his mouth. Cellulitis in his legs. Pneumonia. My brother had oral cancer twice, and both times he got treatment (chemotherapy, radiation, removal of the lymph nodes) and it had gone into remission. We feared it had come back. It hadn’t. But he was back in the hospital in mid-March feeling tired and week. He went in on a Tuesday. The following Monday morning, March 25, he was diagnosed with AML. By 9:00 Monday evening he was dead. Three days before he would have received his 90-day chip.

My niece and nephew asked me to speak at their father’s service today. I’d never spoken at a funeral before. I fretted over it for two solid days. Jotting down memories. Writing stories from those memories. Discarding some and keeping others. Eventually I settled on several stories from our childhood, each of them with a humorous tone. Or so I hoped. I didn’t have a solid opening or closing, but I had some ideas rattling around in my head.

There were a lot of people at the church. I knew my brother was well-liked. He was a really nice guy. A sweet man, with a heart of gold. But still, I was surprised by the large turnout. And it ratcheted up my nerves a bit more. There were several readings done by the deacon, and then he did the eulogy. I thought his daughter was going to do it, but she lost her nerve. So it was up to me to bring Steve back to life, if only for a few moments in the chapel. It’s the least I could do for him. And his children. And his mother.

So when the time came, I took my notes and walked up to the lectern.

“This sucks, doesn’t it?” I began.

“All I’ve been able to think about these past 11 days is what a cruel merciless universe this can be. This sucks. But A and P have asked me to say a few words about their dad, and so I have to look beneath that, and find something more to say.”

This wasn’t in my notes. I’d set them on the lectern and forgotten about them.

I proceeded to tell the story of the moving-box forts, the false bridge-spotting, and the peeing on the car in Canada. I talked about him sneaking popcorn and pizza up to my room when I had to go to bed before everyone else because I was the youngest. I talked about him steering me away from dating his not-so-gentlemanly friends.

I made them laugh. Several times. Nice, hearty laughter filled the chapel. And I made them cry.

“Steve was my big brother. He was a good big brother. But we ran out of time. Still, he will always be my brother, and a father, and a son, and an uncle, and a friend. And I will miss him terribly.”

I made it through with my voice cracking only at the end.

Many, many people approached me after the service and told me how much they enjoyed what I’d said. I felt so proud.

I did it, Steve. I did it for you. I know you liked it. I know you’re proud of me. And you know how much I love you. We really brought down the house today, didn’t we?

Discourage (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)
And then there were two. (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)
Ramble On (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)
A few words about my brother (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)
Leukemia (garyskeete.wordpress.com)
Risk of leukemia after cancer chemotherapy persists (eurekalert.org)

April 5, 2013

A few words about my brother

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Dying, Eulogy, Fishing, Grief, Ontario, Travel, Writing | Tags: Acute myelogenous leukemia, Acute myeloid leukemia, AML, cancer, childhood memories, chronic myelogenous leukemia, Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Eulogy, ford station wagon, Funeral, Funeral Speech, Grief, Grieving, Health, Lake Superior, leukemia, Mackinac Bridge, Memorial Service, Michigan, Ontario, orange soda, Station wagon, Travel |
[15] Comments

I’ve been working on my tribute to my brother at his service tomorrow, and here’s what I’ve got at this point. I still can’t recollect a specific “sweet” story. Dammit.

A and P asked me to say a few words about their father this morning. I have a heaviness in my chest that seems to ease a little with every memory shared. So I will share a few of my memories of Steve with you today.

Steve was my older brother. Three years older, although he often insisted it was two and a half. We moved around a lot as we were growing up. In fact, what I remember most about our childhood is moving vans and boxes. But no matter where we lived, we always spent our summers at the cabin on Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada. We drove from wherever we lived, be it as close as Michigan or as far as North Carolina or Texas.

This meant packing up the car with four kids and a dog, suitcases strapped to the roof of the Ford station wagon, and driving across the country. My mom often had to sit between Steve and me in the back seat of the station wagon on these trips to stop our bickering. Oh how we loved to bicker. It’s how we showed our love for one another. And we loved each other a lot. My father didn’t like to stop as we drove ten and twelve hours a day across country. Not even for bathroom breaks. But he always stopped for meals at McDonald’s. Steve loved McDonald’s orange soda. He ordered it every time, in as large a cup as he could get. Which meant that often that orange soda cup doubled as his chamber pot.

I learned on these trips that Steve had excellent long-distance vision. My parents would award an ice cream to the kid who first spotted the Mackinac Bridge, which connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. Steve almost always saw it first, which I found totally unfair. I decided he couldn’t possibly be so vigilant as to spot the bridge first so often, and that he must be fibbing. So one year, I decided to do just that. Shortly before the bridge should have come into view, I exclaimed, “I see it! I win! I get the ice cream!” Steve got the last laugh when the bridge didn’t actually come into view for two more minutes, and of course he spotted it first. It was then I decided that even if his eyesight was not that impeccable, his timing was, so he deserved the ice cream, after all.

My next story, and I had to get my mother’s permission to tell this one, happened once we arrived at the cabin. We had an outhouse, and no indoor bathroom. It was pitch black at night, often quite cold, and there were bears prowling around the woods. We slept in the upstairs loft. The girls had a chamber pot, but the boys were too manly to use it. They insisted on going out in the cold, dark night to the outhouse, or so they said. One morning, we got up early to head down the old logging roads to look for a fishing spot. When we got into the station wagon, we noticed the windshield was dirty with some sort of odd film. As it turns out, the boys had not used the outhouse, but instead had simply opened the upstairs window. A window the station wagon happened to be parked beneath.

Closer to home, Steve liked to annoy me and my girlfriends (which they knew was his way of flirting) when we were laying out by the pool. We always had a black lab, and one in particular, Nugget, liked to dive to the bottom of the deep end to fetch his conch shell. So Steve would throw it, and Nugget would do a belly flop into the pool, splashing us in the process. And of course when Nugget got out, he’d shake off on us every time. But the girls liked him anyway. Because despite his rascalness, Steve was a very, very sweet guy; and even a little bit shy.

Steve’s leaving us so young has left a terrible hole in my heart. But I will fill it up as best I can with these happy memories.

April 4, 2013

The Ultimate In Writer’s Block

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Death of a sibling, Grief | Tags: Death, Death of a sibling, Eulogy, Funeral, Funeral Speech, Grief, Memorial Service, Writer's Block |
[4] Comments

My niece has asked me to say a few words at her father’s memorial service on Saturday. I have no idea what I’m going to say. I want to make them smile. Maybe even laugh. My brother was a funny guy, so this should be simple. This should just flow from my fingertips.

Nary a trickle.

Am I going to choke on the most important writing assignment of my life?

If only I could tell the story about how he peed out the window on my dad’s car, or when he pinned me on the floor and pretended to hock a loogie up and spit it on me, and once “accidentally” let one slip, or when he talked my friend into putting dog poop in her mouth (she would have done anything for him), or when he blew my barbies up with firecrackers.

I can’t think of any sweet stories. They all make him sound like a rascal. But he was a sweet kid. A little shy, even.

I’ll try again in the morning.

April 1, 2013

Seven Days

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Alcoholism, Cats, Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Grieving, Health, Leukemia, Mid-Life, Sobriety | Tags: Acute myelogenous leukemia, Acute myeloid leukemia, Alcoholism, cancer, Cats, chronic myelogenous leukemia, Cinque Terre, Death, Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Father, Grief, Grieving, Health, Intervention, leukemia, Love, Mid-Life, Photography, Sibling, Sobriety, Stages of Grief, Tuscany |
[29] Comments

Cinque Terre, Italy
May 17, 2012

I’ve spent my nights since I returned from Houston drinking wine, eating, and watching Downton Abbey with my neighbor. I keep referring to it as Downtown Abbey. My English neighbor corrects me but I’m too tired to remember my error. I keep waking up at 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning and lying awake for hours. I repeatedly open the box of work I brought home and toss the lid back on. Yesterday I was uncharacteristically restless. I began cleaning out closets, cedar chests, dressers, and cupboards at 9:00 a.m. I stuffed four trash bags with clothes and various odds and ends for my cleaning lady. I filled three more with towels and sheets for my mother. I finished at 6:30 p.m., not pausing to eat or rest. Then we put a ham in the oven, along with roasted potatoes and asparagus. It was delicious. Comfort food.

Today I was supposed to work at the office, but I feel too wiped out. I look in the mirror and I see a woman who appears to have aged ten years in a week. I’ll be 50 in exactly 50 days. I’m beginning to look more and more like my sister, who’s 6 years older than me. I don’t like her at all. She’s a cold, cold woman. Seeing her face staring back at me when I look in the mirror is depressing. I’ve spent my day today staring at the computer screen and Googling things like, “Death ages you.” And makes you look like your bitch sister.

So here I am: both brothers are dead. My father is dead. I’m left with my mother and sister.

All the men, dead.

This is so fucked up. Now I can see why women marry their fathers. Or their brothers. It’s comforting. I feel no comfort. The closet-cleaning, drinking, eating, sleeping, and tv are my attempts to avoid my pain. But it’s always there. All day. All night. My chest feels like an anvil is sitting on it. I can’t breathe. I keep sighing. I’ve got bags under my eyes. My skin looks washed out. Ashen.

I forced myself to go for a Pilates session on Saturday. The instructor kept talking about imagining my breath filling my lungs, gathering the energy in my core. As I slid up and down the reformer, I thought, “My brother’s body is dead. He can’t breathe. He can’t gather energy in his core. I can. But he’s gone. He’ll never breathe again. His body stopped breathing fifteen minutes before I got to the hospital. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I could have been with him all weekend. My brother was dying and I wasn’t there.”

My family has been wiped out in the space of eleven months. Brother. Father. Brother.

Thanksgivings and Christmases are no more. They didn’t dwindle one by one over the years; they were wiped out all at once. I don’t have my own family to take their place. Instead I have three cats. Sally sleeps lying across my neck. I love that. It makes me want to never leave my bed.

And there’s that ache, expanding in my chest again, making it difficult to breathe.

Things will never be he same. I’ll never be the same. I was so lucky a year ago. Blissfully ignorant of this kind of pain. I’ll never be blissfully ignorant again.

Until one week ago, I still had my brother. I was grieving my father. And my brother. He was grieving our father and brother. I looked at some texts I’d received from him before he got sick.

“I miss Dad.”

“Be extra nice to Mom. Remember, she’s going to be 77 this year.”

He was sober. He had a chance for a happy future. Stolen from him by leukemia seven days ago.

March 28, 2013

Ramble On

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Alcoholism, Cancer, Cats, Death of a sibling, Grief, Health, Intervention, Mid-Life, Sobriety, Stages of Grief | Tags: Acute myelogenous leukemia, Acute myeloid leukemia, Alcoholism, AML, cancer, Death, Death of a sibling, Grief, Grieving, Health, Intervention, leukemia, Philosophy, Stages of Grief |
[34] Comments

All of my male family members are gone. In the space of 11 months. How do I make sense of this? I don’t. There is no meaning or explanation. Everything does not happen for a reason. It just happens. This universe is random. There is no grand plan for any of us. We are not predestined. My brother did not die Monday because we needed to learn some lesson.

My brother died for no reason other than he had leukemia.

It would be easier if I believed a god orchestrated this. I would have something at which to direct my anger. But there’s nothing. Nothing other than the arbitrariness of this world.

Yes, there are things to be grateful for in the midst of my despair. His agreement to enter rehab in late December gave him three months with his children. They have those three months to remember their dad as he really was. He died of leukemia, rather than an alcohol-related disease. (There is no connection between alcoholism and AML. I checked.) He didn’t kill himself with alcohol.

I thought with the intervention I had saved my brother. I thought I had helped him save himself. I had fantasies of spending time with him when he was feeling better. I wanted to take him for long healing walks in nature. I wanted to help him heal his heart. I wanted to talk with him about all the painful things that happened as we were growing up to help him lay them to rest. I dreamed of being close like we were as we were growing up and in the early days of our adulthood, before the alcohol came between us.

I had dreams that he would finally get some happiness.

But life is not about happiness. It’s not about anything. There is no reason for any of this. Or if there is, none of us know what it is. Will we find out when we die? That’s a nice thought. And it’s quite possible that’s all it is.

My words aren’t profound. Countless people have lost loved ones under tragic circumstances. Countless people have shaken their fists and cursed the universe. Or god. Or cancer. Or alcoholism. So what? People will continue to be born. And then each of them eventually will die. Some, like my father, will have long full lives. Others, like my brothers, will die much too young.

(I chose the cat photo not because of my love of cats. Well, that too. But it neatly shows my irreverence for all of this.)

I wonder if there’s another solar system out there where people (or some type of conscious beings) know the day they are born that there is a meaning for their lives. I wonder what it would be like to live knowing what that meaning is. I wonder what it would be like to know exactly how long we all will live and why we are here. Some of you might be thinking, “Regardless, you should live like today is your last day.” But I can’t really do that. I have to plan for the future in case I’m still here. And what if all that planning is for naught? What if I’m worrying about paying for retirement when I’m going to be dead next week? I should be out looking for a new home for my cats, not worrying about paying my bills when I’m dead. I should be eating Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk, and not worrying about my expanding mid-life midsection. I should be sitting outside watching the birds in the feeders, not sitting in here fretting over the box of work the office courier dropped off earlier.

This post has devolved into a meaningless ramble. Which sums up nicely how I feel about life right now.

Yes, I do realize I’m in the anger stage of grief. And that matters because?

Discourage (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)
And then there were two. (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)

March 26, 2013

And then there were two.

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Alcoholism, Cancer, Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Health, Sobriety | Tags: Acute myelogenous leukemia, Acute myeloid leukemia, Alcoholism, animals, Bone marrow examination, cancer, Cats, chronic myelogenous leukemia, Death and Grief, Death of a sibling, Grief, Grieving, Health, Intervention, leukemia, Stray Cat, Stray Cats |
[50] Comments

Bone marrow aspirate showing acute myeloid leukemia. Several blasts have Auer rods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It turns out my brother had acute myelogenous leukemia. My niece and I tried to reach him on the phone today to see if he got the results of the bone marrow biopsy. My niece was told there was no one on the floor by that name. They had moved him to ICU. He was intubated. The doctor said he had another 24 to 48 hours.

I drove home from work feeling numb. I forced myself to stop holding my breath. Just breathe. I arrived home. Sat in the car in the garage. Got out. Went inside. Picked up Sadie. I held her in my arms and stood looking out the window at the sparrows and bluejay in the feeder. Sadie purred in my arms. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Sadie purred. Each time I let out a sob, her paw seemed to squeeze my arm. She made no sign she wanted to be put down. I held her and cried while she purred, as we watched the birds together.

Eventually I set her down and sat in a chair. My neighbor came in. Hugged me.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said.

I felt numb. Couldn’t think. Needed to pack. Maybe if I didn’t go, if I stayed home, it wouldn’t happen.

“Let’s go see Sophie.”

We went upstairs into the kitty’s safe room and sat with her. We took turns petting her as she purred and drooled.

“I don’t have to go to Houston, do I? I can’t do this again. Maybe it won’t happen if I don’t go.”

Was this one of those horribly vivid Viibryd dreams? Surely I was going to wake up to find it wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening again. This kind of thing doesn’t happen. Can’t happen. It would be too cruel. This stupid fucked up random universe could not be that cruel.

But it could.

My brother died today at age 52.

Eleven months after our oldest brother died.

Five months after our father died.

Three days shy of getting his 90-day sobriety chip.

Fifteen minutes before I arrived at the hospital.

Discourage (unconfirmedbachelorette.com)
Big Brother and Black Cats (unconfirmedbacheloret.com)

March 20, 2013

Discourage

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Alcoholism, Cancer, Death of a sibling, Health, Intervention, Sobriety | Tags: Addiction, Alcoholism, cancer, chronic myelogenous leukemia, Conditions and Diseases, Death, Death of a sibling, Health, Intervention, leukemia, mental-health, Sobriety |
[28] Comments

Discourage

1. to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence; dishearten; dispirit

My eldest brother died last year in April of complications from alcoholism. Almost a year ago, now. My father died in October. On December 28, 2012, not wanting to lose my remaining brother to alcoholism, I got desperate and arranged an intervention. My brother agreed to go through detox and then rehab. For the first couple of months, he did well. He went to meetings daily. He called his sponsor. He read the big book. He began working the steps.

My brother’s health, which had been quite poor, improved a bit. He ate better. He did his physical therapy to reverse the muscle wasting. He began walking and discarded the wheelchair. He had been malnutritioned, but began eating better. He began feeling better. He was optimistic.

Then he got sores in his mouth that wouldn’t heal, despite several courses of antibiotics. The sores were so painful that he couldn’t eat. So he drank Ensure. Then he got pneumonia despite having had the vaccine, and was admitted to the hospital for a few days. A couple of weeks after he was discharged, his legs became swollen and painful. Another visit to the emergency room. The doctors said it was cellulitis. They gave him another course of antibiotics. Still, the sores in his mouth wouldn’t heal. The bone had died from the radiation. He underwent more surgery to remove it. They’d already removed the lymph nodes when the cancer came back the second time.

He became discouraged. Frustrated. He stopped going to meetings, saying he needed to rest and concentrate on his health. While this did not bode well for his sobriety, it was hard to argue with him. He felt tired and weak. His mouth hurt. His legs hurt. Once again he began having trouble walking. The doctor told him he needed to rest. And besides, he had no desire to drink. So he didn’t need support from those people, he said. I talked to him gently. Reminded him what happened the last time he didn’t need support from those people. He agreed to call his sponsor.

Yesterday at work, he felt worse and appeared anemic. Last night he went to the emergency room. His white blood count was extremely elevated. They gave him plasma and admitted him. The doctor scheduled a bone marrow biopsy, which should be done by tomorrow. They gave him more plasma today. He feels a little better tonight.

The doctors suspect chronic myelogenous leukemia.

He beat mouth cancer. Twice. He got sober. And now he likely has cancer of his white blood cells. He’s lost his brother; his best friend. His father. He’s hanging in with his sobriety.

Damn it, he deserves a break.

I too feel discouraged. And afraid. I fear I’m going to lose my brother just as we were getting him back.

It never occurred to me that as I approached fifty, everyone would start dying. I didn’t spend much time thinking about death.

Now, I can’t get away from it.

My brother is sick again and I feel discouraged. And I know what needs to be done.

It’s either that, or let it suck me under. I refuse to do that.

February 8, 2013

What’s In A Name?

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Blogging, Death of a sibling, Gaslighting, Wine, Writing | Tags: Blog, Blogging, Breaking Up, Death of a sibling, Depression, Gaslighting, Journal, Journaling, mental-health, Writers Resources, Writing |
[19] Comments

A journal by any other word would be as true. Or would it? What if you called it a blog?

Blogging is odd. When I first started, I had no idea what it was about. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The only person who read my posts was Mack, the guy I was seeing at the time. I was a bit censored. More than a bit, I guess. I was writing for an audience of one. And I was hardly honest about what I really felt. In fact, I’ve got a rant called How I Really Feel saved in my drafts. If the posts about my mother made you uncomfortable, this one would really raise an eyebrow. So I blogged to Mack. It was like an on-line journal. But a journal I knew he’d snoop into and read. He was still reading it in October, when my dad died. But somewhere along the way, after I broke it off, I stopped censoring. And I wrote to myself. I didn’t read other blogs. I wasn’t really sure how to find them. I didn’t use tags or categories or widgets. I didn’t know what they were.

I just wrote.

Until one day, I got curious about categories and tags. I read a WP help page about what they were. I still didn’t get the point, but I began tagging my posts. And then it happened. I got a like. And a follow. And a comment. By total strangers. How had they found my blog? I’m kind of smart, and so it occurred to me, it must have been a tag or a category. So I kept tagging and categorizing. Then I found the topic search page, typed in “gaslighting,” and there was my post. So that’s how they found me. I began to read other posts, and follow other writers. (There is an incredible amount of talent out there.) I watched my follows increase. My little bar on my stats slowly went up and up. The day my brother died, last April, I had the most hits ever. It held the top spot for months. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

But I kept writing.

It got more difficult as more people followed. I worried about conveying things poorly, sounding cold, or crazy, or mean, or wimpy. Or worst of all, broken. I was more careful. I attempted to lighten things up on occasion. To stop treating my blog like a private diary. I started trying to entertain. Or if not to entertain, to just take it a little easy.

I don’t want to take it easy. I want to write whatever I need to write. No matter if I sound crazy or mean or selfish or angry. Or broken. I might lose readers. People might grow weary. Or they might feel resonance and secretly nod their heads. Either way, my goal is to let whatever thing rolling around in my head that needs out, out. Another thing I’ve learned by blogging: there are so many kind, nonjudgmental, crazy-normal people in the blogosphere. I’m just amazed at the commonalities and the kind support. I wish I’d found this world years ago, when I was a teen. But then it didn’t exist. All I had to keep me grounded then was my paper journal. I’ve got a box full of them in the spare closet. Filled with years and years of uncensored writing. Now there’s some crazy for you: teenage angst. And depression. Through my 20s. Packed up in one big box.

Keeping me anchored and steady.

Be it a journal, or a blog.

February 7, 2013

Blame

Posted by Unconfirmed Bachelorette under Abusive Relationships, Addiction, Alcoholism, Codependency, Death of a sibling, Healing, Health, Manipulation | Tags: Abusive Relationships, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcohol Rehab, Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholism, Codependency, Cutting, Death of a sibling, Eating Disorders, Health, Manipulation, mental-health, Mother |
[29] Comments

Still no break in my mother’s silence. I guess if we’ve learned anything, it’s that she didn’t need to talk with me every night as she claimed, after all. I’m feeling a bit down. I lost my father. And now I’ve lost my mother. Even if she does decide to speak to me, I’ve pulled back the curtain and see she’s just a mean selfish controlling bully.

I wonder why I never looked closely at my mother. I spent all my time in therapy talking about my father. Because of the drinking.

When I was growing up, you always did what my mother told you to do. Always. She never gave you the option to decline. If I told her I didn’t want to do something, she’d say, “Too bad.” And that would be that. Regardless of my preferences. Regardless of whether I had a good or compelling reason. My mother controlled all things. And if you pissed her off, she’d tell my father when he returned from a business trip how bad we were (usually the boys), and he’d proceed to smack the crap out of them, and at times, me. My mother knew he would do this. And still, she told him every time.

We all attempted to gain control or escape in our own ways. My brothers learned to escape with drugs and alcohol. My sister would hide her food in her napkin and flush it down the toilet. Or say she was going outside and would finish whatever she was eating out there. Instead, she threw her food on the roof. Looking back, I’d guess she was anorexic. She was very thin and from time to time was anemic. I, in contrast, ate too much and would throw it up. Truth be told, I’d throw up even if I didn’t eat too much. And then there was the cutting. I didn’t know cutting was a thing. I just knew I sometimes did it. I’d forgotten all about it until I read a heart-wrenching post last night.

She’s still that way, my mother. To this day. It has never occurred to her that her children, now adult children, are permitted to tell her no. My brothers, even in their 50s, did what she told them to do. She treated them like children. And they capitulated. My late brother blamed my mother for his fiancé’s death. He said it was her fault because she “made” him go to our niece’s wedding. His fiancé fell at the wedding and hit her head. She went into a coma and died months later. I don’t agree with my brother’s laying the blame at my mother’s feet. The story is merely an illustration of how my mother took away their power. She treated grown men like children, and they behaved like children. They felt powerless. And powerless over alcohol.

I hope my brother, who is in the early days of his sobriety, has a plan for dealing with our mother. I hope he finds the strength to stand up to her. To tell her no and to not back down. I have this massive fear that she will derail him. If he didn’t have to work with her every day, it would be much more manageable.

I sent him a text message on Monday, his first day back at work after finishing the intensive outpatient portion of the rehab.

“Do you have a plan for dealing with Mom?”

“Yes, stay away from her.”

I texted him again today.

“How’s it going?”

“Good. Thanks.”

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

It seems, like my late brother, I too blame my mother. I blame her for so many things. Things I’m afraid to say out loud. Or write. But I will at some point. I need to let them out. I’m hoping if I do, they’ll float away like feathers on the wind. And I might find some peace.

Unconfirmed Bachelorette